A major report has warned that the global cancer burden has doubled in a generation and that too little attention is paid to potential occupational and environmental risks. The International Agency for Research on Cancer published its World Cancer Report 2008.

Risks 396.

One in 10 UK carpenters born in the 1940s will die of asbestos-related lung cancer or mesothelioma, researchers have predicted. The researchers calculated that men born in the 1940s who worked as carpenters for more than 10 years before they reached 30 have a lifetime risk for mesothelioma alone of about one in 17.

HSE news release, 3 March 2009. Rake C, Gilham C, Hatch J, Darnton A, Hodgson J, Peto J. Occupational, domestic and environmental mesothelioma risk in the British population: a case-control study, British Journal of Cancer, volume 100, number 7, pages 1175-83, April 2009. UCATT news release. HSE hidden killer campaign. Daily Mirror news item and Asbestos Timebomb campaign webpage. BBC News Online. Risks 396.

Scientists have uncovered higher rates of cancer at a rubber chemical plant in North Wales. Birmingham University researchers found that at least 10 people at Wrexham’s Flexsys factory in Cefn Mawr may have already suffered premature deaths as a result.

Tom Sorahan and others. Cancer risks in chemical production workers exposed to 2-mercaptobenzothiazole, Online First Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2009. doi: 10.1136/oem.2008.041400. Risks 390.

This report agreed by three European Commission committees in January 2009 forms part of the European Commission’s “risk assessment dialogues”, and concluded “that risk assessment of compounds that are both genotoxic and carcinogenic should be done on a case-case basis.” Note: Most substances in common workplace use have not been subject to any meaningful assessment of potential chronic health associations.

Risk assessment methodologies and approaches for genotoxic and carcinogenic substances, European Commission Health and Consumer Protection Directorate: Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER); Scientific Committee on Consumer Products (SCCP); and Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR), adopted by all three committees January 2009.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has vowed to step up its ‘Clear the Air!’ campaign warning workers against the dangers of silica exposure after it concluded that smaller companies still know very little about the potentially fatal health risks. However, late last year a succession of industry contributors to an HSE online forum on silica risks complained a failure of HSE inspection and oversight was leading to widespread abuse of safe practices and substantial exposures to the cancer causing dust. The HSE news release notes that as well as the well recognised dust disease silicosis, silica “may also cause Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) as well as cancer.”

HSE news release, 6 January 2009. Risks 388.

The trade union movement has argued consistently the number of occupational cancers has been systematically under-estimated in studies. Occasionally, though, a study is thorough and independent enough to find the usual suspects and several types of cancer not normally associated with work.

Eero Pukkala, Jan Ivar Martinsen, Elsebeth Lynge, Holmfridur Kolbrun Gunnarsdottir, Pär Sparén, Laufey Tryggvadottir, Elisabete Weiderpass, Kristina Kjaerheim. Occupation and cancer – follow-up of 15 million people in five Nordic countries, Acta Oncologica, vol. 48, Number 5, pages 646–790, January 2009. Accompanying commentary from Aaron Blair.

This 2009 paper in the Journal of Risk and Governance details the findings of a worker and community driven survey in 2000 of former workers of a plant using cancer-linked vinyl chloride monomer (VCM). It notes:  “This health study was organised and carried out by former employees of one plant, now closed, and their representatives. 162 questionnaires from a survey were collected and analysed from former plant workers on selected ill-health reported and primarily relating to respiratory, cardiovascular and mental health functions as well as recorded angiosarcoma cases. The survey revealed under-reported and unrecorded illnesses in the ex-workers that were associated with VCM in the scientific literature since the 1970s. The paper also documents working conditions using papers and reports from the ex- employees. Government departments at the time of the study such as the HSE (Hereafter Health and Safety Executive: the UK enforcement body on occupational health and safety) and Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) did not and still do not appear to offer coordinated and comprehensive support to those who later develop diseases that may be caused or related to their past work.” The study found officially overlooked cases of occupational cancer, including at least one case of angiosarcoma missing from HSE’s angiosarcoma registry. HSE was criticised for failing to search its register for cases at the plant.

Joanne Carlin, John Knight, Simon Pickvance and Andrew Watterson. A Worker-Driven and Community-Based Investigation of the Health of One Group of Workers Exposed to Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM), Journal of Risk and Governance, volume 1, issue 2, pages 105-124, 2009.

Exposure to the industrial solvent benzene increases a person’s risk of developing multiple myeloma, according to new research. Adele Seniori Constantini of Italy’s Center for Study and Prevention of Cancer and her colleagues also found two other common workplace solvents in the same aromatic hydrocarbon group and often used as substitutes for benzene, xylene and toluene, were also tied to greater chronic lymphoid leukaemia risk.

Risks 384.

Employers who risk the future health of their employees by exposing them to cancer-causing chemicals at work should be prosecuted under UK safety laws, the TUC has said. The call came as the union body launched a campaign to raise awareness of the toxic chemicals and substances that can make workers ill sometimes years after leaving their jobs.

Occupational cancer, a workplace guide, November 2008. Risks 383.

Global trade union confederation ITUC has joined the chorus of condemnation of the decision last month to exclude chrysotile asbestos and the pesticide endosulfan from the list of dangerous products under the Rotterdam Convention, the international agreement which regulates exports of hazardous chemicals.

ITUC news release, 12 November 2008. Risks 382.